Thom: Yes, you’re talking about Gamification
Rudra: Yes, it’s something that’s catching on in pharmaceuticals. Trainers want to start deploying something like gamification. As a matter of fact, this concept is actually moving into the physical world as well as the virtual world. That said, it is a challenge for them to understand the real potential of XR at the moment because it’s new but, once they get some good use cases I think we’ll see wide scale adoption of gamification using XR across all Industries.
Thom: I’d like to move on to a second example of where you see that immersive technology is making an impact in pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Rudra: I would say the second area is In the quality labs. The quality labs are, in my opinion, the brain, heart, and soul of the pharmaceutical manufacturing unit. They are the most integral part of the entire pharmaceutical supply chain because they are responsible for ensuring that good quality and safe medicines get out to the patients. As a result of this, there’s already a lot of pressure thats in a pharmaceutical quality lab. They have to follow a fixed protocol. They have to follow a fixed process. And, they have to use sophisticated equipment like HPLC’s and LCMS’s etc, which give them accurate and precise results. As result of this, what we’ve seen is that when quality Labs start to adopt technology like XR, their work becomes much easier. We’ve seen companies like Roush Shawarma adopting head-mounted displays (HMD’s) and they’ve integrated this with their existing software so that now, you don’t need to reference a separate computer screen to find out what your next step in the process is going to be. You can simply see it in your HMD. So as a result of this, not only is the whole process taking less time, it’s also becoming more precise and less error prone. Additionally, if errors are made, it’s easier to detect them down the line because they are being recorded by the head mounted displays.
Activites is like Root Cause Analysis or implementing corrective or preventative action is becoming easier. This has, in the end, saved from several companies or has the potential to save pharmaceutical companies hundreds of millions of Dollars because a batch failure is something simply something that pharmaceutical manufacturing companies cannot afford at all.
Thom: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. When talking about XR in the lab, we’re specifically talking about augmented reality right? Virtual Reality might be good for training where you don’t need to see your surroundings but, Augmented Reality is best in the lab environment where you need to stay engaged. Most listeners have either tried Augmented Reality or have a good sense of how it works. Data is presented interactively into the user’s line of sight and in the lab that might be an SOP or, in a case where IOT-Connected devices exist, it might be something like the ‘elapsed time’ or ‘temperature’ projected on top of a piece of equipment. This is extremely helpful because, for operators not having to leave your station for critical pieces of information saves time. And then, the ease of access prevents accidents – not to mention that it’s all hands free!
Rudra: also yes one big thing that in a pharmaceutical quality lab the more hands the merrier I would say so people actually we’re having a third hand but the fact that with a are you have two hands that are completely free and not in use on your tablet or computer is actually a game changer it’s helping a lot of technicians and operators become more productive as the days pass by.
Thom: There’s one other technology I wanted to mention, and it’s directly relevant to the lab but it can also have an impact across the broader organization and that’s Remote Expert (also sometimes called Remote Collaboration). If you’ve never heard of it, I’ll refer to you to a company called UtilityAR or if you’re in the United States you can look at ScopeAR and their product, Worklink. Basically the concept is that there are AR glasses that have an outward looking video camera. If you encounter a problem you need assistance with, you can call for help and share the video feed with a distant expert.
We can use a really generic example: Say a device in your lab is not functioning properly. You might typically hop on the phone with the IT department or perhaps the vendor for help. They could be in the next building or they could be halfway around the world. With Remote Expert, basically the operator initiates a video call from their AR glasses that the vendor can view through a secure platform on their own laptop. Now, rather than hopping on a plane, he’s able to guide the operator through the diagnostic process remotely. Unlike a traditional video call, he can draw spatial annotations on his screen that show up right in the line of sight of the operator.
Imagine a situation where somebody is trying remotely to guide you between cutting the “blue-wire with the white-stripe” or the “white-wire with the blue-stripe” – with AR glasses they can just draw an arrow pointing to the correct place and say “cut THAT wire” and remove all confusion.
Rudra: So, Remote Expert is something that is very very exciting especially for the pharmaceutical manufacuturing industry because, not only is it important to keep your lab sterile and clean and have as few people as possible, but there’s this other aspect that nowadays there’s a particular process that needs to be followed and it’s been transferred from a lab perhaps in Switzerland to someone in the USA. In order to do this, traditionally, the person with the entire process would have flown to the US from Switzerland and trained everyone. Now, with the Remote Expert tool kit, the trainer can stay in Switzerland and teach the people in the US remotely. So, that’s another example of an area where Remote Expert has been able to save a lot of cost for pharmaceutical companies.
Thom: Yeah! Absolutely. Well, Rudra, I’ve appreciated the talk. You’ve started off with a bang and if I wasn’t convinced before I definitely am now that you are the right guy for the job. So, let’s wrap this up today. I wonder if you could leave us with some takeaways
Rudra: The first area would be, Educate yourself. Know what the tech is all about. Know what XR is about. Have a hands-on experience with the technology and get your leadership on board. Ensure that you are actually making it clear to your site leadership team that this is a game-changing technology that if adopted can create some real-time impact in the bottom line. Get some cases of where this technology has been adopted. I feel that that is where our role comes in – that Voxel REVOLUTION Consulting’s 4-step process really helps. Starting with the XR experience, we really help pharmaceutical manufacturing companies establish their understanding of XR.
Thom: I couldn’t agree more. And that’s where we’ll have to leave it. Thank you very much for listening today. I hope we’ve opened up the topic of XR in Pharmaceutical Manufcaturing. If you’d like to know more, you can go to http://voxelrevolution.com . I’m Thom Strimbu, we’ll catch you next time.